Rail to get £96bn injection to 'transform service'

The image is from the same source.

The details of the prime minister's plan to transform Britain's rail network will be revealed on Thursday.

The bulk of the money will go to the North of England, which is being billed as the biggest ever public investment in rail.

The government is angry at the axe of a leg of the high speed line.

The new package will deliver benefits sooner, Boris Johnson will argue.

The DfT says that the IRP will improve journey times and capacity from London and across the Pennines and strengthen connections between major cities in the North and Midlands.

Some projects will be delivered 10 years earlier than planned, according to the DfT.

"If we are to see levelling up in action now, we must quickly transform the services that matter to people most," Mr Johnson said.

"That's why the Integrated Rail Plan will be the biggest transport investment programme in a century, delivering meaningful transport connections for more passengers across the country, more quickly - with both high-speed journeys and better local services, it will ensure no town or city is left behind."

The 2020 Oakervee Review into major transport schemes, including the Northern Powerhouse Rail, led to the initiation of the IRP.

The prime minister has come under fire recently over claims that the government intends to water down planned rail upgrades in North England.

Improvements to the NPR east-west connections across the North are likely to involve upgrades to existing infrastructure, rather than a new line between Manchester and Leeds.

Nick Forbes, the leader of the city council, said on Tuesday that the region would be passed over when new routes were developed elsewhere.

The mainline tracks north of the East Midlands will be where the high-speed trains will be put. It could save tens of billions of pounds.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the PA news agency that people in the North should feel optimistic.

We are going to spend a lot of money on this and we are going to deliver it decades before it would have otherwise happened."

He said that if he was transport secretary 15 years ago, he would have moved to the north and started work on the high speed rail project.

The Integrated Rail is what we need to make sure we connect it all up because all of those did not exist when the first idea of the High Speed 2 was first floated.

Mick Whelan, general secretary of train drivers' union Aslef, accused the government of using "smoke and mirrors" while breaking its promises.

Britain, the country which gave the railway to the world, was supposed to be a world-beater. He said that the Tories were letting us down.

The government is broken promises. It has announced the project 60 times, and now it puts the project in the bin.

Transport.
Rail travel.
The high speed 2 is known as HS2.
The rail is high speed.
The rail line is called the Northern Powerhouse.
Grant Shapps is a writer.